How you can change the past
January 8, 2013
The outcomes of recent experiments in quantum physics show that “particle” and “wave” are concepts we latch on to because they seem to correspond to guises of matter in our familiar, classical world. But attempting to describe true quantum reality with these or any other black-or-white concepts is an enterprise doomed to failure.
Video Source: New Scientist
Related:
Quantum shadows: The mystery of matter deepens (access for non-subscribers expires Jan. 17)
Comments (20)
by Nyk
This comes down to the fact that you can’t observe a particle without influencing it somehow. The particle can only be observed through interactions with other particles that the observer sends to ping its location or speed, thus disturbing the original particle (but even so, both cannot be known accurately at the same time).
by Cybernettr
This is pretty mind boggling. Unfortunately, it’s used to justify all kinds of metaphysical claptrap, even though it only applies to subatomic particles.
by cosmowrench
Bucky balls and large molecules are not subatomic particles. And even if it applied only subatomic particles, isnt all matter made up of those?
by Bri
You’d be surprised to know how large or how many things they have observed this phenomenon with. Your also missing the point of how the duality of matter is affected by it’s interactions with other matter. This is happening all the time, not just when scientists are trying to measure something. Check out Einstein Bose condensates. I think they have been able to get over one thousand rubidium atoms to occupy the same space. What exactly is the particles that are doing the measuring? It’s hard to think through but if you delve deeperyoull find that reality isn’t as solid and real as you think it is.
by Graham Rounce
Is that background music SUPPOSED to be distracting? If not, why is it there?
by Whittaker
All new scientist videos have 1) weird background music 2) weird accented narrator.
By the way, their forum is really fun to read. There was a guy named “Polemos” who had some really good points.
by GatorALLin
maybe this is proof you are more likely to find what you are looking for and how you measure also affects what you find. Maybe we still don’t know how to best measure things (why not measure multiple things simultaneously?)
by Nyk
No, it’s not the case that we don’t have the technology to measure things. It’s that there are fundamental laws of physics that prevent us from doing so. Heisenberg has shown, for example, that you cannot measure both a particle’s velocity and position accurately – you have to decide which you want to measure better and which worse.
by Whittaker
Not so sure about the “Uncertainty” part. See the attached link.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/physicists-solve-uncertainty-about-uncertainty-principle
(Yes, mining already-existing data is important! Many of us don’t know how outdated the college textbooks the academia is selling us are!)
by Tom McMahon
Would love to see this video, it is blank/ not attached
by Editor
Tom, what browser and OS are you using? It works with Chrome; haven’t test with other browsers.
by Bri
It’s not playing on my iPhone. ( magic is fun to talk about?) it’s just a room full of mirrors. Things only appear to be real. There really isn’t anything there. Just relativities. A couple of slight tweaks to the holodeck and the holographic information wouldn’t play. The information exists forever. Time and space are an illusion created by the holodeck.
by Gianluca
It doesn’t play on my Nexus 7 too, that’s because mobile OSes have given up Adobe Flash support. There’s nothing to be done about it, only KurzweilAI can decide to move to HTML5′s video playback to help mobile users.
by Editor
I think Google has already committed to HTML5. Have you checked out their awesome HTML5 animations they do sometimes on their home page?
by Whittaker
It IS playing on my good, old fashioned IE 8.
by Tom
got to see the video, it would not play on my iphone. Went to the computer, thanks
by Adam
Hey Tom, the video is working for me on Firefox/Win7. Here is a direct link: http://bcove.me/luws8gec
by AGreenhill
I don’t see how their conclusion is drawn. The video says it’s not a property of the photon because the same happens for other forms of energy/mass… OKAY… so it’s a property of energy/mass then! Apparently when you ‘measure’ it you alter the way it later interacts with instruments.
Magic is fun to talk about – but I don’t think we need to introduce it unnecessarily.
by pt
“Apparently when you ‘measure’ it you alter the way it later interacts with instruments.”
This only applies to the first experiment he discussed where the particle is measured as it passes through the door. In the second experiment, when the measurement is taken after the fact, the way it’s measures changes its previous behavior.
Modern physics used to be “magic” too, it would be foolish and presumptuous of us to assume that future physics concepts don’t have the same relation of our perception of “magic” now, and thus to make some reasonable speculation based on long tested experiments.
by Whittaker
Just don’t let people like Deepak Chopra ruin real science (My second time mentioning this guy on KAI!).
What I want is “new” magic, aka sufficiently advanced technology (in Arthur C. Clarke’s words), not “old”, Fortean magic.